At least six people were dead and seven others missing after a fishing vessel sank in the South Atlantic near the Falkland Islands, officials said on Tuesday.
Crew members of the Argos Georgia fled the ship after it began to sink on Monday afternoon, around 200 miles off the coast of the Falkland Islands.
As many as 27 people were stranded in life rafts after initial attempts to rescue the crew failed due to bad weather, according to a spokesperson for the government of the Falklands, a British overseas territory.
The search efforts were restarted on Tuesday after the storm had subsided.
Officials from Spain’s Pontevedra province in southeastern Galicia, said that 10 of the crew members were Spaniards, but did not provide details on their condition. Reports said in addition, there were several other nationalities among the crew.
The Falkland Islands, which Argentina calls the Islas Malvinas and claims as its own, said it had received an emergency signal on Monday from the Argos Georgia.
It said it indicated that the boat was east of Stanley, the capital of the Falkland Islands, when it began taking on water. At the time, the ship was sailing at a speed of 35 knots per hour, according to monitoring site MarineTraffic.com.
Aircraft and several vessels were deployed in the search-and-rescue effort.
The Argos Georgia is managed by Argos Froyanes Ltd, a privately owned joint British-Norwegian company, and was sailing under the flag of St Helena, another of Britain’s remaining overseas territories in the South Atlantic.
The boat was built in 2018, according to Vesselfinder, a website for tracking marine traffic.
Britain and Argentina went to war over the Falkland Islands in 1982, when Argentine troops embarked on an ill-fated invasion that resulted in the deaths of 649 Argentines and 255 British service personnel.
A report by the BBC said British Forces South Atlantic Islands (BFSAI) Atlas aircraft was able to track and report the position of the liferafts.
It added that the aircraft and an additional Voyager plane have maintained a watch on the rafts overnight, according to officials.
The patrol vessel Lilibet and two fishing vessels have also made their way to the location, with the first ship arriving on scene and starting search operations.